Statement by Commissioner O’Malley on the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget
Reading Time: 3 MinutesLast Updated: March 11, 2024
The Biden-Harris Administration today released the President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2025. Following historic progress made since the President took office—with nearly 15 million jobs created and inflation down two-thirds—the Budget protects and builds on this progress by lowering costs for working families, protecting and strengthening Social Security and Medicare, investing in America and the American people, and reducing the deficit by cracking down on fraud, cutting wasteful spending, and making the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share.
Key investments focus on improving the customer experience, reducing wait times at all stages of the disability process and on our National 800 Number, modernizing our information technology, improving overpayment and underpayment processes, and advancing equity by increasing access to our programs.
The Budget makes critical, targeted investments in the American people that will promote greater prosperity for decades to come. At the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Budget will:
- Protect the Social Security Benefits that Americans Have Earned. The Administration is committed to protecting and strengthening Social Security and opposes any attempt to cut Social Security benefits as well as proposals to privatize Social Security. The Administration believes that protecting Social Security should start with asking the highest-income Americans to pay their fair share. In addition, the Administration supports efforts to improve Social Security benefits, as well as SSI benefits, for seniors and people with disabilities, especially for those who face the greatest challenges making ends meet.
- Improve Service Delivery. The Administration is committed to improving service delivery for the more than six million retirement, survivor, and Medicare claimants, as well as the more than two million individuals applying for disability and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) every year. The Budget requests $15.4 billion in discretionary budget authority—a $1.3 billion or 9 percent increase over the 2023 enacted level—to improve customer service at SSA’s field offices, State disability determination services, and teleservice centers for retirees, individuals with disabilities, and their families. The Budget also improves access to SSA’s services by reducing wait times.
- Advance Equity and Accessibility. This Budget ensures we will deliver accessible Social Security services to all eligible individuals, while maintaining rigorous stewardship and oversight of our programs. Our programs must reach underserved communities and people facing barriers to accessing our services, including individuals with low income, limited English proficiency, mental and intellectual disabilities, and those facing homelessness. The Budget also supports our efforts to simplify and update the SSI application processes and expand access to agency programs and services through our outreach efforts, particularly for underserved communities. We will improve our IT systems to provide a more consistent, equitable, and accessible experience for our customers; reduce burdensome manual processes for our employees; increase self-service options on our National 800 Number; and expand our cybersecurity program. Further, the Budget prioritizes preventing and resolving improper payments.
- Provide National, Comprehensive Paid Family and Medical Leave. The vast majority of America’s workers do not have access to employer-provided paid family leave, including 73 percent of private sector workers. Among the lowest-paid workers, who are disproportionately women and workers of color, 94 percent lack access to paid family leave through their employers. In addition, as many as one in five retirees leave the workforce earlier than planned to care for an ill family member, which negatively impacts families, as well as the Nation’s labor supply and productivity. The Budget proposes to establish a national, comprehensive paid family and medical leave program administered by SSA. The program would: provide workers with progressive, partial wage replacement to take time off for family and medical reasons; include robust administrative funding; and use an inclusive family definition. The Budget would provide up to 12 weeks of leave to allow eligible workers to take time off to: care for and bond with a new child; care for a seriously ill loved one; heal from their own serious illness; address circumstances arising from a loved one’s military deployment; or find safety from domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking —otherwise known as “safe leave”. The Budget would also provide up to three days to grieve the death of a loved one. The Administration looks forward to continuing to work with the Congress to make this critical investment and strengthen America’s economy.
The Budget builds on the President’s record while achieving meaningful deficit reduction through measures that cut wasteful spending and ask the wealthy to pay their fair share.
For more information on the President’s FY 2025 Budget, please visit: https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/.
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Tags: Benefits, Presidential Budget, Service Improvements
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Danny L.
I was suspended and wrongfully terminated for my doctors submitting requests for leave under Family Medical Leave Act as an employee for SSA.
Elizabeth K.
Where does the budget say that social security check s are going to be where he so that we can afford to pay our rent and be able to service I can barely afford my rent never mind my utilities and forget about food the is so sky rocket high
JW
Partisan comments during an election year.
Biden is toast.
DJ
“With nearly 15 million jobs created and inflation down two-thirds”
Yeah right, how many of those “created” jobs were nothing more than people returning back to their same job after the pandemic.
Also, inflation “down two thirds” means your still paying 1/3 more than when he came to office.
James G.
Two very good points that you were not supposed to catch.
I do hope that protecting benefits Americans have earned means that the legislature will no longer be using Social Security as a piggy bank.
Gigabyte
Where in the budget does the money that the government took out of Social Security to pay other bills RETURNED!!!
James
I have wondered about this several times.
When I borrow from a bank or credit union, they always expect to be paid pack, and with interest no less.
Human
How can an organization abide by such mandate if they don’t even police their own? Their staffing is under, people don’t enjoy working there, they unjustly get fired. Those who make it, do not share the knowledge with those that need the mentorship, expertise or development. Letters and statements look great; actions are another – they have yet to be proven.
Cynthia G.
Words that sound good don’t always meet needs. Bottom line is the powers that be have designed the system to be exactly what it is intentionally.there are them who will benefit and then who will not intentionally.
Mary L.
Why does no one ever speak of the times that the government raided the surplus of Social Security for other uses? What would the condition of SS be if those funds were restored?
J.C.
You are correct. It was the Clinton administration.
Kenya c.
I found my disability claim July 13th 2021. Is so ridiculous that I have been waiting on the fair decision from SSA all the way to federal district court and I’m still waiting the proof is in my medical file, I have lumber spondylosis -arthritis ,ostarthritis. In my lower back,and nerve damage,with neuropathy and my feet and hands, morbid obesity, high blood pressure,high cholesterol , hearing impairment,bad eyesight, MRI results. I’m at federal district court now, no decision but remanded,and rendered. Still waiting on my disability claim decision, besides an favorable decision this whole process. I wish this process didn’t take2 years and 8 months so far.
robert s.
ssa refused to accept 2 of my childerns claims for being below the age of 18. 2 other childern only got partial payments. leaving us in poverty. NO to 60 billion for ukraine until the U.S.can properly pay benefits owed to familie. the biden talks a lot of B.S. but their actions speak louder than their words i told my childern that the U.S. goverment stold their money and gave in to another country. did the U.S. think about the cost of alienating their own citizens. have corporate america fight your next war. were out. my kids get nothing, U.S.gets nothing.
Cynthia B.
Don’t Keep Waiting! Look Up The SSA 2024 Organizational Chart!!! Email Everybody & GOD” Start Calling Martin O’Malley The New Social Security Administrator. Call & Email Your State Legislatures & Senator. Contact The Office Of Inspector General. Get Your “State Attorney General” Involved. Get Your Disability Rights Office For Your State Involved. Also Please #1 Contact Your Governor’s Office. # Life’s Turn Of Illnesses Happens! & Disabilities R Traumatic! I Know 27 Yrs For Me. Don’t Give Up! Give Out! Or Give In! Press, Push & Pray! Your Way Through Okay. Be Bless’d
Walt
No way SSA is competent to administer a leave program
The Budget proposes to establish a national, comprehensive paid family and medical leave program administered by SSA.
Walter L.
What about estimates on when Social Security is going to run out of money especially with adding more and more benefits without anyway to finance it without increasing the deficit from 34 trillion and rising each day. How come we have to balance a check book but the government doesn’t? We are going to go bankrupt and our bond rating will go down raising the interest rates paid by the government even more. Please don’t use the word leadership to anyone working in government until some one gets a handle on our debt. It’s a hot mess in Washington and it doesn’t matter who is in power.
T.A.M
Inflation is down 2/3 of what Biden made it, in January 2020 the rate of inflation was 2.5% when he took office